@pazos: fmon is already using inotify to hook into Homescreen tiles via png files (AFAICT, never used it; very, very quickly looked at the code), so unless you can think of another filesystem event related to stuff accessible from nickel to hook into, launching stuff from inside the GUI won't get much prettier (via inotify, at least).
Launching stuff at boot, on the other hand, is relatively easier, although, as we've discussed with @frostschutz in this thread, the timing (either onboard being mounted or not, or nickel being up or not) can be iffy to pinpoint without resorting to ugly modification of the rcS (the joy of a monolithic approach to the bootprocess on Kobo's part. In comparison with the Kindle stuff, upstart might be a rat's nest, but you can pretty much do anything you want with the boot process in a clean manner
).
For instance, right now, dropbear starts well after nickel.
Code:
┌─(ROOT@(none):pts/0)────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────(/)─┐
└─(0.89:39%:23:22:93%:#)── pidof nickel ──(Fri, May 01)─┘
516
┌─(ROOT@(none):pts/0)────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────(/)─┐
└─(0.90:39%:23:22:93%:#)── pidof dropbear ──(Fri, May 01)─┘
2395 778
┌─(ROOT@(none):pts/0)────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────(/)─┐
└─(1:0.82:39%:23:24:93%:#)── pgrep -f inetd ──(Fri, May 01)─┘
760